You have to understand the Pashtoon tribal culture in that part of Afghanistan/Pakistan. They are loyal if nothing else and are not motivated by cash reward. Besides that, it is one of the most rugged regions on the Earth from a geography standpoint and a HUGE area. Without any help from locals, it's like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. We'll get him eventually. When we do, he'll probably come to Maryland and get a drivers license.

stockingfull wrote:The "Osama on a Silver Platter" crap is just so old and tired. And discredited. Don't forget, Geo Tenet (of "slam dunk" infamy -- oh, and Bush's Medal of Freedom recipient) and the CIA boyz refused to certify him at the time.

And lessee, how many tapes has OBL made since triumphantly admitting responsibility for 9/11? And the same CIA -- plus all of our other armed forces -- haven't been able to lay a glove on him? (Gee, I wonder if John McCain is gonna tell Obama all he knows about "how to get Bin Laden"? )

Apart from more than doubling our 9/11 losses in Iraq, our positively majestic ineptitude since 9/11 has done more to diminish our stature in the world than the attacks themselves.

Pathetic.

Stocking...are you one of those guys that lets facts get in the way of your opinion.....

Sorry, dude, but I don't see a thing in that article that refutes that the CIA wouldn't certify OBL for Clinton. In fact, to the contrary, the piece contains the opinions of many who were "fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials" -- the same officials, like Tenet, who were at CIA while Dubya and Condi were ignoring the infamous August 6 PDB entitled "Bin Ladin [sic] Determined to Strike In US." http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/ ... intel-memo As John McCain might have said, "That's 5 weeks before 9/11, my friends." But it's also a fact that acting on that PDB -- or even reading it -- would have cut into Dubya's month-long Crawford vacation.

But look, whatever fault(s) led to the 9/11 attacks, what remains are the realities that (a) our efforts to get OBL since then have been humiliatingly ineffective, and (b) Iraq needlessly diluted those efforts, had no "WMD" and had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, with the aggregate result that we now look not only weak to the rest of the world, but discredited as well.

coalkirk wrote:You have to understand the Pashtoon tribal culture in that part of Afghanistan/Pakistan. They are loyal if nothing else and are not motivated by cash reward. Besides that, it is one of the most rugged regions on the Earth from a geography standpoint and a HUGE area. Without any help from locals, it's like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. We'll get him eventually. When we do, he'll probably come to Maryland and get a drivers license.

The reality is, "getting" OBL at this point would do nothing but redouble the terrorists efforts. I'm not one who believes in the "Global War on Terror" anyway. I don't think you can beat someone into liking you. And I don't think terrorists are all that "afraid" of us anyway. Stomping out terrorism is like punching water. Pointless, and only serves to wear you out. In the end, the water wins.

stockingfull wrote:Sorry, dude, but I don't see a thing in that article that refutes that the CIA wouldn't certify OBL for Clinton. In fact, to the contrary, the piece contains the opinions of many who were "fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials" -- the same officials, like Tenet, who were at CIA while Dubya and Condi were ignoring the infamous August 6 PDB entitled "Bin Ladin [sic] Determined to Strike In US." http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/ ... intel-memo As John McCain might have said, "That's 5 weeks before 9/11, my friends." But it's also a fact that acting on that PDB -- or even reading it -- would have cut into Dubya's month-long Crawford vacation.

But look, whatever fault(s) led to the 9/11 attacks, what remains are the realities that (a) our efforts to get OBL since then have been humiliatingly ineffective, and (b) Iraq needlessly diluted those efforts, had no "WMD" and had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, with the aggregate result that we now look not only weak to the rest of the world, but discredited as well.

Yes! Yes! I for one will never forgive Bush for, in the 5 weeks after he took office, not figuring out and difusing the 9/11 attacks that took 6 or more years to plan and execute. After all, Clintons people who had the reigns for 8 years warned him it could happen. And the Clinton people sure did ALL they could do given that they only had 416 weeks to do anything about it. Especially considering that his top people had to deal with the huge national problems of bimbo eruptions. And then there was the matter of our intelligence community being hamstrung by presidential directives that we couldn't use any intelligence assests that might have dirty hands. Please, let's only ask muslim boyscouts what is going on in their world. Give me a freaking break! Bush was dealt a handfull of crap. We were attacked numerous times and all Clinton did was nothing unless you want to count lobbing million dollar cruise missles in the middle of the desert or bombing a civilian aspirin factory as doing something about it. Your 20/20 hindsight and Monday morning quarterbacking is typical liberal garbage! Did everything after 9/11 get handled correctly? No. Bush wasn't perfect. Mistakes were made. But doing absolutely NOTHING is a far greater mistake.

jpete wrote:The reality is, "getting" OBL at this point would do nothing but redouble the terrorists efforts. I'm not one who believes in the "Global War on Terror" anyway. I don't think you can beat someone into liking you. And I don't think terrorists are all that "afraid" of us anyway. Stomping out terrorism is like punching water. Pointless, and only serves to wear you out. In the end, the water wins.

You obviously don't understand or believe the goals of the radical muslim agenda. No one is trying to beat them into liking us. It is truly kill or be killed with the radical element. Yes, we would like the so called "regular muslims" to like us. You could fit them on one bus however. Only history will prove the seriousness of this fight. I just hope we are around to see the outcome. And for my money, I'd like to see OBL swinging from a rope.

jpete wrote:The reality is, "getting" OBL at this point would do nothing but redouble the terrorists efforts. I'm not one who believes in the "Global War on Terror" anyway. I don't think you can beat someone into liking you. And I don't think terrorists are all that "afraid" of us anyway. Stomping out terrorism is like punching water. Pointless, and only serves to wear you out. In the end, the water wins.

You obviously don't understand or believe the goals of the radical muslim agenda. No one is trying to beat them into liking us. It is truly kill or be killed with the radical element. Yes, we would like the so called "regular muslims" to like us. You could fit them on one bus however. Only history will prove the seriousness of this fight. I just hope we are around to see the outcome. And for my money, I'd like to see OBL swinging from a rope.

And what will a Bin Laden pinata do for you? Nothing but piss off a lot more Muslims.

This pussyfooting around we are doing is nothing but throwing stones at a hornets nest. Just reinstate the draft, declare war on everyone who doesn't look like us and get on with it. If we're not willing to do that, then we are p!ssing more blood and treasure down the Vietnam rathole. Will it take another 12 years and half a million men to figure it out?

Not to minimalize the tragic loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we lost more men in Iwo Jima in one day than in all of the war on terror. Nothing worth having comes without a sacrifice. You don't hear alot about Iraq much anymore. Things aren't a tea party there but are going much better than the American hating press wants to report. The muslims who would be pissed off with an OBL pinata already hate us. Any other muslims who are supposedly not "radical" should be pissed off that OBL has brought the wrath of the war on terror to them. After all I keep hearing how most muslims are not radical and do not support the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children by bombing them and burning them to death. (That was not meant to a slap against Clinton and Janet "wackem in waco" Reno although in fairness, they did do the same thing) Anyway, fasten your seatbelt because P. ELECT. Obama is about to ramp up Afghanistan. It should be a fascinating next few years in History.

coalkirk wrote:Yes! Yes! I for one will never forgive Bush for, in the 5 weeks after he took office, not figuring out and difusing the 9/11 attacks that took 6 or more years to plan and execute. After all, Clintons people who had the reigns for 8 years warned him it could happen. And the Clinton people sure did ALL they could do given that they only had 416 weeks to do anything about it. Especially considering that his top people had to deal with the huge national problems of bimbo eruptions. And then there was the matter of our intelligence community being hamstrung by presidential directives that we couldn't use any intelligence assests that might have dirty hands. Please, let's only ask muslim boyscouts what is going on in their world. Give me a freaking break! Bush was dealt a handfull of crap. We were attacked numerous times and all Clinton did was nothing unless you want to count lobbing million dollar cruise missles in the middle of the desert or bombing a civilian aspirin factory as doing something about it. Your 20/20 hindsight and Monday morning quarterbacking is typical liberal garbage! Did everything after 9/11 get handled correctly? No. Bush wasn't perfect. Mistakes were made. But doing absolutely NOTHING is a far greater mistake.

Lessee, Dubya was inaugurated on August 6, 2001? You're always a source of valuable new information, especially on Islamoterrorism, Muslim culture and Americans who are former Muslims or have Muslim-sounding names.

The facts remain: Dubya not only was warned by Clinton, but had an explicit, personal warning of impending attacks, by Osama, on our soil, 5 weeks before 9/11, and he did, as you put it, absolutely NOTHING.

coalkirk wrote:Not to minimalize the tragic loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we lost more men in Iwo Jima in one day than in all of the war on terror. Nothing worth having comes without a sacrifice. .

The thing is, Iwo, and all the other battles in Europe and the Pacific had a goal. Once we made it to Berlin and Tokyo, it was game over, we win.

The GWOT, like the "War on Drugs", the "War on Poverty" and all these other "wars" are unwinnable. It's good money after bad and will only serve to destroy this country. We are seeing the first effects now. Things are NOT going to get better. Just like the Soviet Union spent itself to destruction, so will we. In ten years, the USA will be a much different, and worse off place. IMO.